


Moloko Plus

by Anna_Hopkins



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: A bit of the old ultra violence, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Book 6: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Dark Harry Potter, Dark Magic, Descent into Madness, M/M, Minor Character Death, Tomarrymort Spring Exchange 2019
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-20
Updated: 2019-11-30
Packaged: 2020-01-20 16:25:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18528757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anna_Hopkins/pseuds/Anna_Hopkins
Summary: (aka, "Moloko Pl͜us")Harry lets go of his anger, at the same moment the last of the Dursleys falls dead to the ground."'Dobby isfree,'" he giggles.(Things escalate quickly, from there.)





	1. July the twelfth, 1996.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Salivour](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Salivour/gifts).



The heatwave of June, 1996 was the hottest Harry could remember; so hot, in fact, that Vernon loudly considered bringing an air-con unit in from the supply office at Grunnings. For all that the Dursleys laid about like wrung-out rags in the sitting room all day, watching the telly, they did not grant an ounce of leniency to Harry -- who braved the summer sun to repeat his routine of seasonal chores.

Harry’s only respite came in the cooler hours of the night, when he lay, exhausted and dehydrated, on the desk by the windowsill, in the gentle -- insufficient -- breeze let in by the open window.

Early July, in contrast, was an entire week of rain, running colder and colder as time went on. The fog that rolled through on the night between the ninth and the tenth felt almost unnaturally thick, reducing visibility to the point Harry could barely see past the fence in the garden down below; the dim orange light of the streetlamp seemed to reach only half as far, in the haze. He shivered, feeling the mist roll over his skin, and squinted once again at the letter Dumbledore had sent him, as he had been doing all day.

Two days. Two days, and he would be leaving for the Burrow. Or even Grimmauld Place --  _ no,  _ his mind corrected,  _ not there. Sirius is gone. _

Sirius was gone, and the Dursleys hadn’t given him even an hour to grieve in private before handing him a list of chores and threatening him into completing it. Even exhausted as he was, Harry could muster up enough anger to wrinkle his nose, disgusted, at the idea of them.

Just because he could, he decided not to tell his relatives that Dumbledore would be visiting. Two days later, he wouldn’t know whether that was the right move, or the wrong one, because the Dursleys were glaring at him the whole time the Headmaster explained the situation with the inheritance Sirius had left behind.

_ “He’s been left a house?” said Uncle Vernon greedily, his small eyes narrowing, but nobody answered him. _

They managed to resolve the matter of whether the house had truly passed to Harry; he privately delighted in the looks on the Dursleys’ faces when Kreacher threw his tantrum on the carpet.

_ “It seems that Sirius knew what he was doing. You are the rightful owner of number twelve, Grimmauld Place and of Kreacher.” _

Harry was about to ask what to do with the house-elf now --  _ Do I have to keep him with me? _ \-- when a bright silver rabbit popped into existence, floating about the Headmaster’s head. “Urgent report, code purple, Hogsmeade,” the Patronus spoke in a voice Harry recognized as Sirius’ cousin Tonks, and disappeared.

A look of alarm came over Dumbledore’s face, though he recovered his usual expression quickly. He stood abruptly from his seat. “I must apologize, Harry,” said the old wizard, “but I am afraid I must postpone the second part of tonight’s business for one more day. Please be ready to depart at eleven p.m. tomorrow, instead.” He took his leave without addressing the Dursleys, departing through the front door in a sweep of colorful robes.

Harry wondered what ‘code purple’ was about, but closer at hand was this new situation with his relatives, who had just learned of Harry’s substantial wealth in not so many terms. He wondered whether they were about to butter him up, now that they knew.

But no, apparently treating him politely hadn’t crossed Vernon’s mind. “All of it, boy,” the man was demanding, his grubby hand held out as if Harry could just pull his vault out from his pocket. Petunia and Dudley were still on the couch, staring shellshocked at Kreacher, probably; noticing Harry’s gaze straying, Vernon set a heavy hand on his shoulder, squeezing painfully. “ _ Now _ , boy. Well? We’ve fed and clothed you for this much time -- pay us back.”

 

_ Entitled bastard _ , Harry thinks, trying and failing to shrug off the man’s sausage-fingered hold on him. He levels a look on Vernon Dursley that almost makes his uncle falter. “No,” he says quietly, then more forcefully. “I will not.”

The walrus rears back as if struck, before turning red, mustache bristling. “ _ What was that? _ ” Even Petunia looks over, now, at the anger in her husband’s voice.

Harry sneers at Vernon, contempt welling up in him now that he dares to voice it. He means to shout, now, to say all the things he’s never said: that he is ungrateful because they have given him nothing to be grateful for -- that they treat him worse than an animal, because at least animals have food and water -- that none of them will ever get  _ anything _ from him, not after they have made him so  _ weak _ with hunger and pain -- but what comes out of his mouth is a savage, wordless snarl.

“Just  _ die _ ,” he spits, glaring at Vernon --

There is a flash of green, and the bruising grip on his shoulder, the demanding hand in his face, fall away. A heavy thud on the carpet. Vernon Dursley is now just a body on the ground.

Harry barks a laugh, harsh, incredulous -- because he told the man to die, and he has done just that.

Before Petunia can scream, he turns sharply to look at her. “You too,” he tells the horse-faced bitch, thinking of burned hands and frying pans, of the cupboard, which was  _ her idea _ , he recalls. “Die.”

She crumples like a ragdoll into a heap, and a thrill of  _ something _ cuts through Harry’s anger. He looks at Dudley, now, who stands frozen,  _ afraid _ , he realizes with no small satisfaction, in the middle of the sitting room. “Die,” he says, more casually this time; there is a loud thud, and then there is blessed silence.

Now Harry is alone, and the absurdity of what has just happened begins to catch up to him. The Dursleys are dead: he has killed them. He is  _ free _ .

“‘Dobby is  _ free _ ,’” he quotes, giddy. He giggles at the thought, then breaks out into full-blown laughter, doubled over holding his sides. Oh, this is great, this is  _ wonderful _ . What is he going to  _ do _ ?


	2. Week of July the thirteenth.

The general excitement hasn’t diminished by the time Harry leaves the sitting room in favor of the kitchen. He’s still giddy, but he’s also hungry, and the leftover roast from the Dursleys’ dinner is calling to him. While he fixes up a three-course meal for himself, choosing the best bits of everything he’d made, his pragmatic side is contemplating how best to cover this up.

He doesn’t trust any magical means of cleanup to remain hidden from the Order (or the Aurors) for very long; house-elf magic might have worked, but he doesn’t trust Kreacher as far as he can throw him, and Dobby might even refuse to do it if he asked. So, no. Muggle means. And, as Harry glances around the kitchen, he thinks of just the thing to do it.

Earlier in the month, with much fanfare, Vernon upgraded the kitchen to a natural gas stove. If Harry were to leave the gas on for a while, and something sparked it...well.

Ironic that the best cover-up is a gas explosion. Harry smirks.  _ Sirius would be proud _ .

He would have preferred to have more time to set this up, but Dumbledore is coming back in less than twenty-four hours, and Harry is too thrilled with his newfound freedom to give a damn what happens next. The loose plan of action he’s formed is enough; he brings the rest of the chocolate cake he’d made for dessert upstairs with him, takes a hot bath, and sends Hedwig off with a letter to Ron about his meeting with the Headmaster.

And leaves the gas on when he goes to bed.

 

At five-thirty in the morning on July thirteenth, Arabella Figg makes a distress call through the Floo to Hogwarts. “Come quickly,” she shrieks, “there’s been an explosion -- Harry is --!”

Dumbledore and the Order arrive within minutes, Apparating into her kitchen on Wisteria Walk. Figg brings Madam Pomfrey to her bathroom, where the Boy-Who-Lived lies burnt and bloody in the bathtub (“It’s the cleanest part of the house right now,” Figg rushes to explain) but thankfully alive.

Privet Drive is in chaos: the house at Number Four is gone, and not by magical means. Vaporized. Muggle police and firefighters are already on the scene, containing the damage and quenching flames on nearby houses. Ultimately, the Order agrees with the Muggle reports of a gas explosion.

Harry is put under a magical coma by Madam Pomfrey while she heals the second- and third-degree burns all over his back, and the broken nose and shoulder he managed to get in the shockwave. Severe, fatal injuries for a Muggle, but almost instantly curable with the right potions and spells. She determines he will make a full recovery, and releases him from magical sleep after thirty-six hours; twelve hours later, he finally awakens.

Albus visits about an hour after that, intent on hearing Harry’s side of the story. In the end, it corresponds roughly with the Muggle reports and the timing of Arabella’s emergency call: he woke up smelling gas, tried to wake up the Dursleys to no avail, and got outside with his knapsack in hand just before the explosion went off.

“I am sorry to say your trunk and Firebolt did not survive, Harry,” the Headmaster tells him solemnly. “Your wand and cloak, however, were saved -- protected by their place in your bag, which was itself shielded by your body in the fall.” Harry’s sigh of relief devolves into a coughing fit that he takes a minute to recover from. With a steadying breath, he turns to look at Albus with a seriousness in his gaze.

“My aunt and uncle and Dudley didn’t make it,” he observes, in a detached voice. “Did they? I remember seeing the yard, before I made it to Mrs. Figg’s house. It was...flat.”

_ Oh brave boy _ , Albus thinks, wiping at his eye. “My condolences, Harry. They are indeed gone.” It is better to broach the subject now, he thinks, rather than later; brave of Harry to ask.

Harry sighs, staring into the bedsheets. “All right. I guess...I guess I had to be sure. Is there anything else, sir? I think I need a minute.”

Albus hears a soft sound from the bed as he leaves, but doesn’t look back; he will give Harry the privacy to grieve that he deserves.

For his part, Harry is grinning down at the bed, stifling his urge to laugh. He clenches a fist around his wand.  _ Victory _ .


	3. July the twentieth, and so on

Dumbledore doesn’t reappear for more than a week, during which time Harry has the run of Grimmauld Place, having learned of his location after being freed from strict bed-rest by Madam Pomfrey that evening. Apparently, his newly healed skin will “settle” better if he moves around. Even the Order isn’t passing through -- their new headquarters is somewhere else, maybe the Burrow -- which means he has no real supervision save for Kreacher.

The ornery old elf seems to have taken a liking to him, though, which is almost as nice as the general improvement in atmosphere of the house itself. Even at night, Grimmauld isn’t nearly as gloomy and uncomfortable as it used to be last summer; the stale scent of rot that permeated the upper floors is all but gone, too, which surprises Harry the most out of everything.

With regular meals and extra snacks whenever he asks for them, Harry spends his first three days and nights alone exploring, discovering all manner of things: secret or otherwise. His favorite encounters are, in no particular order, the drunken portrait in a corner who can only speak in swears; the round Vanishing Cabinet connecting the attic and a second-floor closet; and a study on the third floor Harry found quite by accident, leaning against a wall after rushing up several flights of stairs.

The study is where Kreacher finds him, on the third evening of his comfortable solitude: reclined on a chaise lounge by the fireplace in the especially-chilly room, reading a heavily annotated copy of _Magick Moste Evile_ from one of the walls of shelves. For a book of its title, it’s really quite tame; Harry can recognize an encyclopedia when he sees one. He’s most of the way through the second chapter on _bodilie magick and rituall_ when the telltale crack of house-elf apparition gets his attention.

“Kreacher sees that Master Potter-Black bes likings the late Master Pollux’s study.”

“I am, yes.” With the fire going, it’s the coziest room in the house.

The elf wrings his hands, looking around at the shelves upon shelves of books, scrolls and manuscripts. Harry noted on earlier inspection that few of them have visible titles; many are bound with tightly knotted golden ribbons, ostensibly preservation magic, and one shelf has a transparent barrier protecting its contents from being touched. _Magick Moste Evile_ is just the most familiar tome in sight -- another copy had screamed when he opened it in the Restricted Section. Very memorable.

“Has Master seen the other rooms in the suite?”

 

As it turns out, Pollux Black was the last Black to use the third floor’s master suite, a set of rooms large enough to be its own house. Accessible through a wide variety of secret passages, and also an arched French door that only appears now that Harry knows about it, the main room appeals to Harry’s unspoken craving for open spaces -- a desire that extended periods at the Dursleys’ always awakened in him. (Again, he remembers, joyous, that _he never has to return to Privet Drive_.) It is grandiose in its size, but not overly decorated, which Harry attributes to its long vacancy.

The ensuite bath feels even larger than the bedroom; Harry lacks words to describe what he sees, but Kreacher supplies an explanation. “Master Pollux liked the Roman baths so much he brought them home with him.” There is also, of course, a standard English-style bathroom in one part of the larger bath area, with a shower, a tub, and a sink with mirrors. The whole experience serves to remind Harry that the Blacks were far wealthier than the state of the house suggested.

What really sways Harry into moving into the suite, though, is the garden off of the bathroom. Visible through the windows of the study, it’s a beautiful green space, with its own fountain and an ancient-looking weeping willow. He will be able to see both the sunrise and the sunset from here, if he wants to; just lying on the magically-softened grass sounds like a dream.

He moves in immediately.

 

The next four days pass in utter bliss: split between hours spent on the grass, basking in the sun, and those spent in study of a variety of books in Pollux’s collection. Kreacher plies him with magical snacks the likes of which Harry has never seen in Hogwarts -- pickled plums, fried pumpkin, game bird and wild pork -- and tailors robes to fit him from the large collection in the attic. Harry can see how he might have gotten used to this kind of life, were he raised in Grimmauld Place or somewhere equally well-off.

Finally, in the evening of the nineteenth, Harry’s attempts to decipher Pollux’s notes in the margins of a section on basic blood rituals are cut short. “Master Potter-Black, there bes an Albus Dumble-dore to be seeing yous, in the kitchens.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (edited slightly 4/29 to improve sentence structure; no real changes.)


	4. Budleigh Babberton.

It's funny when Kreacher pretends the people he doesn't like are total strangers. 'An' Albus Dumbledore, indeed. Harry yawns, rolling his shoulders, and sets the book aside. He's been sitting under the willow in the warm grass for hours; his silk day-robes are all full of dirt. "Tell him I'll be down in twenty minutes," he orders Kreacher, and takes his time getting up, stretching out in the sunshine. It doesn't bother Harry to make the man wait when he's shown up unannounced.

He takes his time, too, in selecting robes from the wide variety Kreacher has already tailored to fit him, settling on a set that was modern in the eighteen hundreds -- the closest to Muggle wear that he'd be likely to find in the house.

If the ensemble surprises the Headmaster, he doesn't show it. He does, however, dispense with pleasantries once Harry emerges from upstairs and seats himself at the kitchen table; explaining the plan to find one Horace Slughorn, former Potions Master of Hogwarts, and convince him to return for the upcoming year.

(In another world, Harry wouldn't know Slughorn's name until they had already arrived at his house. In this one, Harry  _ has  _ unknowingly surprised Dumbledore enough that he lets slip several things before he can recover his tongue.)

"Does that mean Professor Snape will be teaching Defense, sir?" _ Like he's always wanted? _

It occurs to Harry that this means Snape will be gone from Hogwarts by the year's end. He glances at Dumbledore's shrivelled, blackened hand, and wonders.

 

The Headmaster rises from the table, now that his explanation is complete, and says he will return in the evening. "We're not going now, sir?" Harry asks, blinking.

"Alas, no," sighs Dumbledore, "we will have a better chance of catching him at night. I merely wished to ensure that you were equipped to travel, my boy, before we began our adventure."

"I think so," Harry supposes. "All my most important things were in my bag. But I'll need to get my books for school before the summer ends."

"An Order member will escort you into London this week, on a day of your choosing," the Headmaster offers. "For now, I must be off."

"You wouldn't like to stay for dinner, sir?" Harry asks, not at all surprised when the offer is declined.

 

Several of the portraits upstairs, it transpires, are acquainted with Horace Slughorn. Harry listens to the stories they have to share while he dines in his study, then retires for a full bathing routine in his ensuite -- the alternate hot and cold baths really are energizing. When he finally descends the stairs again, hours later, it is not long before the Headmaster is set to return; Harry takes a seat across from the portrait of Walburga, whose curtains he now leaves open, to be cooed over while he smooths down the sleeves of the deep green robes he has chosen for the occasion.

Just because he can, Harry indulges the portrait's suggestions for last-minute primping: a bottle of hair potion  combs his hair out into neater, shinier waves.

"This is great," Harry remarks on looking in the mirror, beaming at the portrait of his godfather's mother. "Thank you, Aunt Walburga." (Technically, she  _ is  _ his aunt.)

Walburga mutters approvingly, for a change, and Harry bids her good night, closing the curtains just as Dumbledore appears at the door. It's good to finally get along with the portrait, but there's no mediating the relationship she has with the rest of the Order.

As earlier, Dumbledore doesn't say anything about Harry's choice in robes, but it's obvious he wants to -- they've got the Black crest embroidered on the front, and flow dramatically as he walks thanks to some kind of enchantment in the material. While not so garish as the Headmaster's violently purple ensemble, they are a lot fancier than anything Harry used to wear.

"It is good to see you are settling in well, my boy," Dumbledore comments, offering a lemon drop that Harry declines.

Instead, he retrieves a sugared plum from the drawstring bag he has in his pocket, nibbling on the morsel. "Being the master of the house has made it a lot easier, I think. It doesn't feel like the same place as last year." He elects not to mention that he has found a small paradise hidden away upstairs. "It's quiet, but I needed that."

The old wizard nods his understanding. "Miss Granger and Mister Weasley have been asking after you at the Burrow; perhaps they might arrange to visit, some other time. For now, let us depart..."

 

The Apparition proves easier than Harry had worried it would be, given his track record with Portkeys and the Floo. He manages not to fall over entirely on arriving -- though he does stumble. When he looks up, it is to find him and the Headmaster beneath a flickering lamp on a clearly Muggle street corner. It is a simple matter, from there, to follow at Dumbledore's heels while he leads them down the street, making a beeline for an unremarkable one-story house with an overgrown hedge. A brief tingling feeling, like walking through a spiderweb, sweeps over Harry's skin, but he says nothing; rather, he finds himself curious what will happen.

Dumbledore makes a point of opening the gate without magic to cross the threshold, a move Harry now recognizes as a precaution against unfriendly wards, courtesy of  _ Magical Defenses _ in the study library. (Though, Slughorn wouldn't have gutted a cat to mark the ward lines, would he?)

The front door is slightly ajar. Dumbledore has Harry stand behind him while he opens it further -- the faint "oh, dear" reaches his ears only a half-second before the smell does. When Harry looks at the scene for himself, he cannot restrain the gasp that tears from his throat, honestly surprised.

The sitting room they have arrived in is utterly trashed. Furniture upturned, mirror broken, vase of flowers spilled over the rug in a puddle. It's nothing compared to the blood, though: great gouts of it have splashed the walls, pooled and streaked over the floor, splattered up to the ceiling in some places. Harry is lucky that Dumbledore is not facing him, at the moment of his first glimpse of the scene -- all the better to miss the involuntary delight that springs up in Harry's chest, the thrill down his spine, the light in his eyes.

He composes himself in the next moment, taking a fortifying breath of coppery air. (When he breathes deeply, Harry detects traces of sulfur, too -- what is that?) "This has to have just happened, sir," Harry observes in a slightly shaky voice. "We didn't hear any Apparition -- does that mean the culprits could still be here?"

"Indeed, while they might have gotten away on foot," Dumbledore hedges, prodding a still-upright armchair with his wand, "I believe you are correct in this case. Our culprit is --" another poke into the chair cushion -- "still in the room, even."

"Enough, Albus!" grouses a new voice, coming from -- the chair?  _ Wicked, _ Harry thinks, blinking back his surprise as it turns back into a potbellied, weary old wizard with a distinctive walrus mustache encompassing both his lip and his jowls. The wizard hobbles upright, all five-and-a-half-feet of him, and from the way Dumbledore makes a valiant attempt at a genial smile, this must be Horace Slughorn.

Just as he is thinking this, Dumbledore introduces them. Harry's attempt at a polite smile only earns a wary look -- and isn't  _ that  _ a refreshing reaction, he thinks, after years of being alternately loved and hated.

Harry pays just enough attention to the conversation between the older wizards to learn that the blood on the walls -- and floor, and ceiling, from which a drop has fallen on his cheek -- is dragon's blood, magically applied to look like a very bloody crime scene. Slughorn is siphoning it off the surfaces into a large bottle -- the 'vase', as the flowers and water are conjured -- but misses the drop on Harry's face. Idly, he swipes a thumb through it and licks it clean.

_ That may have been a bad idea, _ Harry realizes a minute later, when he very suddenly feels dizzy, like he's indulged too much in Pollux's study's liquor stash.

He seats himself on the footstool, the lapse thankfully unnoticed by either wizard, and attempts to master himself before conversation turns to him -- barely succeeding.

"If you will excuse me a moment, Horace, I have need of the lavatory," Dumbledore excuses, departing the room to leave Harry and Slughorn alone.

Harry runs a hand through his hair in a nervous gesture that probably messes up his attempt at styling it. "Sorry about him, sir," he offers to the portly wizard, hoping to assuage his obvious annoyance at the whole situation.

That gets a laugh out of Slughorn -- a genuine, hearty laugh that has Harry reeling back slightly in surprise. Were he standing, he might have overbalanced and toppled over. "Ah, forgive me, Mr. Potter -- it's just -- ha! Apologizing for  _ Albus'  _ behavior..."

Harry waits it out, smiling sheepishly while Slughorn's laughter eases off into chuckling. It helps that this dragon's-blood drunkenness is very relaxing, like sitting in Pollux's sauna. "He  _ can  _ be overbearing, can't he," he thinks aloud.

Slughorn stops laughing, now, and looks rather assessingly at Harry for a minute. Then, he points his wand at the ceiling, and a silver cage springs up around them before fading. From what he asks Harry next, it must be a privacy ward.

"Is that how you really feel, Mr. Potter, or has Albus simply coached you on what to say to gain my favor?" The dislike for the Headmaster there is one that closely mirrors Harry's own private resentment.

He leans forward in his pseudo-seat, bracing himself with his elbows on his knees. "Dumbledore can bring me along, but he can't put words in my mouth," Harry tells Slughorn, very seriously. "I know he wants you to return, but I frankly don't care whether his plot succeeds or not."

From the surprise that flickers across the man's face, it seems he believes him. (Good, because Harry is telling the truth.) Still, he looks generally skeptical, so Harry goes on.

"You know, living in the Black townhouse, I've gotten to hear a lot about you from the portraits," Harry muses, mind caught on the tangent. "When the Headmaster said he wanted me to come and meet you, I could have refused -- I'm the master of that house."  _ Why am I volunteering all this information? _ "He wouldn't have been able to take me out of there by force. I agreed to visit because  _ I _ wanted to meet you, Professor."

"Flattery won't get you as far as you think," Slughorn warns, but Harry sees otherwise in the crinkling of the skin around his eyes.

"Certainly not, sir," Harry agrees, wondering when he got to be such a smooth talker. "I wouldn't disrespect you by believing otherwise."

He leans back on the footstool, bracing his hands on either side of the carved wooden frame. "I stand by my words from earlier. The portraits told me you used to be the Head of Slytherin; you know everyone worth knowing. It's, well,  _ dumb  _ of Dumbledore to try and make you do anything you don't want to."

Is the room...glowing, or is it just him? Swallowing, Harry averts his gaze, trying to clear the double-vision coming to him every other blink. When he looks back, Slughorn's gaze has gone thoughtful again. "I think I'd have liked to see what Slytherin House was like while you led it, sir," he finds himself saying. "The headmaster will never admit it, but he's let the House fall into ruin, the way Snape has been leading it. From what the portraits say, things were a lot better when you were around."

Dumbledore chooses this moment to return from the toilet, wherever it is in the house; Slughorn dismantles the privacy charm with a small motion of his wand. Harry yawns into his hand, turning his attention to the headmaster, and entirely misses the expressions that cross the portly wizard's face as he considers what Harry has said.

(Even more unbeknownst to Harry is the mistaken impression he has given to Slughorn about his House loyalties; an impression left uncorrected until the wizard stares down at the Boy-Who-Lived from the Head Table, a few months from now.)

 

Little else is said that Harry can remember later, between Dumbledore and Slughorn. He stands from the footstool, finding himself no longer unsteady on his feet (though he is still seeing things). The Headmaster does seem pleased with himself when they leave, though, and bids Harry a rather cheery good night before departing Grimmauld Place.

Alone, Harry rubs at his eyes. Everything is all...shiny. Sparkly. "Kreacher," he croaks. The elf appears immediately, surveying him with some alarm. "Is dragon's blood poisonous? I ate a drop without thinking, half an hour ago."

He drapes himself on the stairs, climbing, feeling sluggish (heh), loose-limbed, relaxed, and eventually makes it upstairs to his study. There, he shudders pleasantly on the couch, stretching out like a cat in the sun -- or a snake, he supposes. "...I really am drunk, aren't I? This feels nice."

"Master is pickings up all the old Masters' habitses," Kreacher murmurs, eyeing him dubiously. "Master Arcturus liked his drop of blood each week, he did..."

"So it's not going to kill me, then," Harry concludes. "All right...what does it actually do?" An idea comes to him, and he conjures little colored lights at his fingertips, making them spin. The colors tickle. He laughs.

"Adds magic to your core, boy -- expands your power." A voice from the normally-empty portrait frame overhead: Harry blinks up at it, half-seeing the unfamiliar speaker.

"H...hello," he slurs, grinning up at the blurry portrait. "Sorry, can't see you at the moment. Glasses aren't...working."

"He's really dosed himself good," the portrait mutters. Louder, probably so Harry can hear him, it speaks up. "You know any Dark spells, boy?"

"O' course," Harry answers, bewildered. "Got the Unforgivables, don't I? Good old killing...curse..." he's figured out how to get the lights to yo-yo off his fingertips like they're attached on string.

The portrait addresses Kreacher. "Elf -- go get a few pests. Spiders, moles, rats. Bring them back here in appropriate containers."

"...Zis like fourth year? Moody -- Barty -- and the spiders. Heh. The bouncing ferret. Heheh."

"Focus a minute," the portrait snaps. "You'll feel better if you use some power-intensive spells. Which curse are you best at, boy?"

"Green," Harry supplies, eyes unfocused. His head lolls uselessly over the side of the sofa, just able to see Kreacher returning with several rats in a jar.

"Killing Curse, really," the portrait mutters skeptically. "Go on, then, use it on a few rats. You'll feel better." Harry holds up a hand for the jar, feeling more than seeing it land in his hand. Fumbling, he manages to open the lid.

The rat that jumps out is, Harry thinks, especially feisty. It reminds him of Scabbers; he catches it with his Seeker instinct, chuckling, and floats it up into the air. Panicked squeaking ensues, and Harry giggles.

"Hi there, Pettigrew," he coos, before his voice turns cold. "You _rat._ Everyone's dead 'cuz of _you._ _Die."_

A flash of green. A sound like a clap of thunder. The rat goes still and limp in the air, and Harry lets it drop.

_ "Sweet Circe," _ the portrait whispers, but Harry doesn't hear it. "Fuck  _ yes," _ he swears, reaching for the next one -- the remaining two rats seem afraid, and don't even dare to bite his hand as he seizes the next in a loose grip.

Harry doesn't float it away from him, this time. He boops the rat on the nose with his finger, and grins down at it. "Die, you," he says.

Green. Boom. Dead.

Harry breathes out sharply, rolling onto his stomach to rut against the cushions. "This was a great idea," he sighs, dizziness subsiding in favor of the pleasant high he'd felt after killing the Dursleys. "Thank you, Mr. Portrait. I wish I knew your name."

One more rat. Harry doesn't bother to let it out of the jar; just points at it through the glass. "And  _ you're  _ food for Nagini," he decides, setting the jar back down. "Kreacher, where's Nagini?"

"There be's no Nagini in the house, Master," Kreacher answers.

"Oh," Harry says, brow furrowing in concentration. Where  _ is  _ Nagini, anyway? "Never mind, then. Die," he says to the rat, which does so, and Harry shivers head to toe, letting out a low moan and gripping the leather arm of the sofa.

"Maybe I c'n...bring her," he wonders, "what was that spell...slurpin'...serpen.... _ Serpensortia Nagini," _ he intones, waving his hand at a patch of open carpet.

It doesn't work; Harry shrugs it off. "Guess I can't call her over. Kreacher..." the house-elf perks up from where he is returning the dead rats to the jar. "Can you send these to...uh...Malfoy Manor, yeah, the Dark Lord'sss...quarterss...." another yawn. "'M goin' to bed. G'night..."

**Author's Note:**

> This was my first time participating in the Tomarrymort Spring Exchange - and my second or third time being in an exchange in general. I hope my giftee likes it! ♥


End file.
